With the blurriness of his vision, and the stabbing in his skull, focusing on even the representational screen was difficult, but necessary since the Paquawrat was high above the ecliptic and on an angled course away from Farhka that he had to correct, without dropping inside the orbit of the sixth planet.
“There …” There … there … there … His own words echoed inside his skull and ears, and his eyes watered. He closed them and felt as though he were twirling upside down. He opened his eyes, and knives of light stabbed through them.
Silently, slowly, he refocused his attention on the approach course to the outer Farhkan station. The briefing profile had cautioned against going inside the orbit of the sixth planet. At least the outer orbit station showed on the screens, almost like an energy beacon, and he aimed the Paquawrat toward that beacon.
Then he leaned back in the couch and tried not to see anything, nor to hear anything. Nor to think—not about the images of Soldiers of the Lord, nor an archbishop whose fault had been to be in the wrong place with the wrong name, nor Quentar who’d thought the only safe Revenant was a dead one, nor James who’d saved his neck more than once with his knowledge and never asked for acknowledgment, nor Ulteena, who’d taught him the value of anticipation and never asked … .
The accumulators hiccuped, and the hiccup jolted down his spine. Both feet twitched, and his boots thumped the cockpit floor.
He sighed, and his breath sounded like a hurricane whistling through his body. He tried to tamp down his sensitivity, but nothing happened. His breath still rumbled and whistled, and his feet twitched.
Slowly, he studied the system readouts. He had another two hours of torture before he reached the outer Farhkan station.
The time passed slowly, the red haze swelling and ebbing, his feet occasionally twitching, and each sound slashing at him. With his eyes open, the cockpit light as low as he dared leave it, his eyes burned. If he closed them, he seemed to whirl in space.
Periodically, he checked the ship, his position, and his progress. How much translation error he’d piled up he had no idea, because Farhkan systems didn’t provide humanstyle comparators. He supposed the Farhkans could tell him.
Finally, after almost two hours, he straightened and transmitted. “Farhka Station one, this is Coalition ship Paquawrat, code name Holy Roller.” Trystin took another deep breath. “Request approach clearance and lock assignment.”
“Human ship, this is Farhka. Reason for your porting is what?”
“Request assistance … Coalition ship Paquawrat, code name Holy Roller, requesting refueling and assistance.”
“Have you a patron? Please state the name of your patron.”
Patron? What the hell was a patron? Patron … patron … patron …
Trystin closed his eyes and wished he had not as the cockpit seemed to whirl around him. Patron?
Ghere! He’d said “patron” twice, emphasizing it. Trystin opened his eyes and said the name slowly. “Rhule Ghere. Dr. Rhule Ghere.”
A hissing sound carried through him, a sound with knife edges. Then there was silence. Trystin began to decelerate, calculating his own approach.
Five minutes passed … then ten.
“Human pilot, please state your name. Please state your name.”
“Trystin Desoll. Trystin Desoll. Major, Coalition Service.”
Another hissing rushed through him, knife-edged, and he stepped up the deceleration. His feet twitched, and his jaw developed a tic.
He slowed the ship more, noting the two Farhkan craft that bracketed him, unable to do more than watch, half wondering if even the return flight profile had been a setup to ensure he never got back. Escaped assassins were embarrassments, he suspected, again, too late.
“Human pilot Desoll, you are cleared to dock. Follow the energy beacon. Follow the visual green light. Follow the long audio signal on your emergency frequency.”
“Thank you, Farhka. I have the green light … .” Trystin winced as the sounds overpowered him, and he waited for them to pass. “I have the beacon.”
Edging the ship up to the small lock was agony. Even the signals from the magnetic holdtights slammed through his implant as they locked the ship to the Farhkan station’s hull.
Holding on to the edge of the couch, then bracing himself on the bulkhead, he shuffled toward the lock. His fingers trembled, and his arms shivered as he opened the lock.
In the locking port stood four Farhkans. Two trained some sort of heavy weapons on Trystin.
Trystin stepped from the ship, and the heavier gravity clawed at him. He tottered there for a moment, the strange clean and musky smell of Farhkans around him, the strange weapons they did not need pointed at him, when he could scarcely even walk.
He wavered for only a long moment before the darkness reached out of his brain and smote him down.
71
“Without a deity the universe is uncertain. But, once the deistic faiths have been analyzed, they provide no greater certainty, nor is there any verified evidence that deities per se have improved humanity or its institutions. Certainly, improvements have occurred, but those improvements have been accomplished in purely human fashion. These accomplishments have proved that people can bring greater certainty, greater goodness, greater understanding into the universe, and, while they may have been inspired by faith, those good people have done so without the physical help of a deity.
“Thus, it can be argued that the invention of a deity only serves as a pretext for human beings to believe in a set of values beyond those rooted merely in self. Yet, most societies in history have chastised those individuals who have attempted to acknowledge publicly that need for a set of values beyond those rooted merely in the individual’s needs, or that a ‘mere’ human being could consider and develop such values. Thus, great truths have always been presented in the guise of divinely inspired guidance.
“Yet theologies exist which claim that men and women will be as gods, or equal with god, upon their physical death, and they have proved immensely popular and successful, despite the inherent contradiction. How, logically, can death transfigure a man or woman into a being that much superior to the one who lived on earth? Such a theology avoids the need to admit that individuals can develop and live by a moral code with ‘higher’ values, as well as the need to admit the effort required in doing so, by providing a deity with the wherewithal to accomplish a theological transmutation almost magically … .
“That is the greatest danger in theology and deities—that they create the impression that goodness cannot be created or maintained by mere humans without divine help. This allows all measure of excuses … and strange contortions to explain perfectly logical occurrences … .”
The Eco-Tech Dialogues
Prologue
72
In the darkness, angels with knives of fire seared his flesh, peeled back his skull, and flayed him with whips of raw pain. Then they laid him upon an altar under a blazing sun and chuckled … chuckled … chuckled …
In the light, lashes of darkness froze his skin, stabbed through his thoughts, and … burned … burned … burned …
In the icy wastes of an unknown storm, he shivered as he burned, trying to explain without words while his words drifted unheard.
In the depths of an unknown ocean, he floated, not breathing, not drowning—just floating—while green-tusked whales hovered around his corpse … .
Trystin groaned, amazed that he could speak, and that the sound did not deafen him. Finally, hoping that the cockpit was not too much of a mess—or had he actually reached the Farhkan station?—he opened his eyes.
Nothing spectacular. He half lay, half reclined, in something that looked like a cross between a bed and a long reclining chair. He wore nothing, but a loose sheet was draped over him. The reclining chair/bed rested in a cubicle perhaps three meters on a side.
“Do not be alarmed. Someone will be with you soon.” The words scrolled through his head.
Tryst
in grinned, despite the strange surroundings. For the first time in years, there was no underlying static, no buzzing, no pain associated with the implant. And he felt good. He sat up and let the silky sheet slide back to his waist. He looked thinner, with some loss of muscle mass, but not a lot. That had to be expected from lying around whatever it was that passed for a Farhkan hospital. He hoped it was a Farhkan hospital.
The door irised open, and two Farhkans in shimmering gray fatigues stepped into the room. One carried a square satchellike bag.
“Major Desoll?”
“Yes? You’re Rhule Ghere, aren’t you?”
“That is correct. This is Ruyalt Dhale. He is … a specialist.”
“In aliens like me?”
“Yes.” There was no humor in the response.
“I’d like to thank you both. I was in pretty bad shape.”
“Yes.” Ghere looked at Dhale. “You died. Neurosensory breakdown. It is said to be painful.”
“I died? I don’t feel dead.”
“You are very alive.” The second Farhkan’s “voice” carried a tinge of what Trystin could only have termed humor. “You will be alive for a long time. Please be still for a moment.”
Trystin remained still as Dhale opened the satchel and focused an odd-shaped instrument on him, then another, and another.
Finally, Dhale straightened, packed his instruments back into the satchel, looked at Ghere, and departed.
“You may wish to wash before you resume your normal coverings, although I can assure you that you have been kept scrupulously clean.” Ghere pointed to a standard-looking door. “Those are human facilities, built for your use.”
“Where are we?”
“You have remained on station one. That was more … expedient. I will wait outside. The main door will open as you near it.”
“My clothes?”
“In the facilities room.” Ghere walked out as silently and stolidly as he had walked in.
Trystin eased off the hospital recliner and padded to the facilities room. Hanging on oblong hangers on the wall were undergarments and the gray shipsuit and accessories—all spotlessly clean. There was also a huge gray towel next to a narrow shower.
After using the facilities, Trystin felt his face—cleanshaven. He showered and dressed quickly. Then he went to find Rhule Ghere.
Ghere, sitting in a large loungelike chair in a larger room outside the cubicle where Trystin had awakened, motioned to the other large chair. Trystin sat, feeling somewhat swallowed by the chair, and edged forward in it.
After a long moment of silence, Trystin said, “I don’t know where to begin. I’d like to thank you again.”
“You may not wish to.”
“Why not?”
Ghere shifted his weight. “You died. We repaired you. But we could not repair you as you were. You have been on Farhka station for nearly two of your standard years.”
Trystin swallowed. Then he asked, “I piled up some considerable translation error. Do you know how much?”
Ghere gave the impression of a shrug. “Not exactly. We did not know precisely …”
“Just generally,” Trystin pressed.
“We calculated approximately thirteen of your years.”
Fifteen years! Gone. Trystin’s mind blanked for a moment, but Ghere continued.
“ … because of your participation in the study, I did have your medical records. You are as close to what you were as was feasible to create you.”
“Create me?”
“You are a partly regrown version of you. Your entire neural system had to be replaced. Your memories were stored and replaced. Some of them may seem hazy at times.” Ghere’s voice floated through Trystin’s thoughts, almost as though unrolling on his mental screen, but more completely and more quickly. “Do you know why we were required to do so much?”
“No.” Trystin did not speak, just let the thought flow.
“You should. In order to cope with the pressures of the Revenants’ assaults, your people have used biotechnology, nanotechnology, and high technology to allow every officer in your Service to handle neural data loads beyond what one might call your design capacity.” The mental equivalent of a chuckle followed. “Most have died young.”
“What else could we have done? We don’t have all those bodies. Over any length of time, no ecosystem will support that. The Great Die-off proved that, but the Revenants don’t want to believe history.”
“It is sad. Still … you have changed matters greatly … as you will find … .” Ghere projected a laugh into Trystin’s thoughts. “For this we thank you.”
“For what?” Trystin’s lips tightened. “For being able to mess with my mind? To program me to get into the Revenants’ Temple? What the hell else did you do to me?” He paused, then added, “And while you’re at it, would you tell me why? Why, for god’s sake?”
“You do not believe in god.” Again, there was a semblance of a mental chuckle that ended quickly. “We did not program you, or exert any compulsion on you. Such compulsions are … unethical. They also do not work, because they restrict the one compelled. Such restrictions create failure.”
“Fine. You didn’t compel me. You sure set me up.”
“We did not make you a pilot. We did not make your choice to become an Intelligence agent—”
“How did you know that?”
“In rebuilding neural systems, one learns much. Only Ruyalt Dhale and I know those things. No one else will know, and we do not lie.”
The Farhkans didn’t have to, Trystin thought bitterly. “So you gave me the keys to the Temple and asked enough questions to point me in the right direction and watched the fun? How many Service officers in Intelligence did it take before you got me?”
“One hundred and thirty-one officers over twenty years. There were but four who were given the Temple protocols, and you were the only one who could transcend his culture.”
“The others?”
“None of them used the keys. They were executed.”
Trystin shivered.
“How did you get to Orr?”
“Orr?” Ghere’s mental voice revealed puzzlement.
“Never mind. So what was this great thing I was so fortunate to accomplish?”
“We would not use the term ‘fortunate.’ Would you?” Ghere offered another wry-feeling laugh.
“Sorry. Wrong word. You still didn’t say why you did all this. Why did you give us technology? Why did you manipulate me? Why have you been following me around for two decades?”
A long silence followed the question.
Finally, Ghere answered, with long pauses between phrases, as though he had not rehearsed the exact answer, or as though he were groping for a simple way to explain something very complex to a child. At that, Trystin bristled even as he listened.
“Complex technology brings greater use of force. Unless a culture actively resists, force always attracts those less … ethical. Technology also allows greater … populace growth. Use of machines pushes most intelligences toward more … rigid … social controls. Rigidity creates greater conflicts, requiring more force. This fuels conflict, and conflicts are first turned toward other cultures.”
“So why didn’t you just bounce on the Revenants yourselves?”
“We did so,” answered Ghere. “But alien intelligences are never accepted as valid, and more and more force would have been required—enough force to destroy the corace you term Revenants. Force corrupts the user, and we could not afford that degree of corruption.”
“Oh … you wanted to pawn off the corruption on us, on good old Trystin?”
“You would turn the destiny of your race over to us?” asked Ghere.
Put that way, Trystin didn’t like it at all. “So why was I the fortunate one?”
“As I once feared, you have been unfortunate,” Ghere admitted bluntly. “For that we are thankful. You have learned from that, and you will learn more. It is best you discover why we are thankful
after you return to your people. They will be pleased to see you.”
“To lynch me?” What had happened after he’d left the Jerush system? Ghere had kept avoiding an answer to that question.
“No. You are … a figure of some … note. We do not deceive. We are thieves, Major, but not liars. Now, you must go.” There was a finality to Ghere’s thought that discouraged further inquiry there.
“You still haven’t answered my questions, and you’ve done something to my implant.”
“Once you return to your people, you will know enough to answer your own questions. You no longer need the implant, although it remains in place. We integrated those facilities into your system.” Ghere offered a smile. “Your Service will doubtless deactivate the implant at some point, but that will not change you. Not now. Not ever. Also, to ensure that you did regenerate properly, we had to make some other modifications.”
“Such as?” Trystin looked at his hands. They looked normal, except his vision seemed preternaturally clear.
“You will age slowly, if at all.”
Trystin glanced at Ghere, looking over the calm, square, and impassive face. “Why did you decide I was worthy of the … this blessing?”
“I did not make that decision alone. We … all the doctors … felt that such a decision would be beneficial … and might repay you.”
“Repay me? For being an assassin of other humans? For being your tool?”
“You killed many before, to little effect. What you have done this time has been of great benefit.”
“To whom? The great Farhkan empire?”
“You need not be so bitter. You have done well, as you will discover, for your own race. You have also helped our understanding of your race greatly, and that will benefit us all.”
Trystin took a deep breath, the calm certainty of the Farhkan flooding over him. “Great. You make me sound like I’m worthy of something … and you won’t tell me what. And you still haven’t really answered my questions.”
The Parafaith War Page 46